


that awful energy

by teenagedaze



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: ADHD, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I like to view this as the run-up to Peterick, Mental Health Issues, but it's more friends in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenagedaze/pseuds/teenagedaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe things aren't that much better than they used to be, at least where Patrick's concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that awful energy

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a warning: this isn't my favourite thing I've written. I've had it sitting as a half-finished draft for ages before finally finishing it, and to be honest, I don't like it that much. However, it was an idea that's very close to my heart and one I will likely try again from a slightly different angle. Long story short, I have ADHD, and people don't always realise how awful it can make you feel sometimes. So, there's a little bit of my heart in this. The irony is that an inability to focus and stick to one idea is why this took so long to write.
> 
> (I didn't proofread, so please let me know of any typos so I can come back and correct them)

Patrick was sitting perfectly still.

That alone, Pete knew, meant that something was wrong. Patrick was almost never still, even when he was sitting down he was either drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair or working away at something with his leg tapping out rhythms on the carpet. If he was standing, he’d be gesturing, bouncing on the balls of his feet or fiddling with the ends of his sleeves. Pete had always thought Patrick to be a contradictory ball of energy, so quiet and understated unless you really knew him; his movement was an inconspicuous presence until it was suddenly absent. Patrick was still, yes, but that didn’t mean he was calm. Patrick would only stop moving if it was pointed out to him, and the only one who ever pointed it out was Joe, in one of his particularly prickly moods. Patrick’s face would flush red with embarrassment and he would stop moving, if only for a moment, before those little tics of his returned. Pete would watch out of the corner of his eye to check. If he stopped and then stayed stationary, his energy would burn away like a lit fuse. If Pete was equally wired, it was likely to end in a fistfight. Or, it used to be.

Nowadays, whenever it happened Pete just wanted to curl him up and tell him that he understood, that he felt it too.

He didn’t think he felt it in the same way as Patrick, though. Pete’s need for movement crashed over him in waves, leaving him exhausted and motionless whenever he wasn’t bouncing out of his seat. Patrick’s was subtle, quiet in the way that most things about Patrick were, but constant. It worried him sometimes, how even Patrick didn’t seem to be aware of it. He would just sit, carry on regardless, letting himself get increasingly irritable as he sat braced on the couch behind his laptop screen. He wondered if Patrick even realised when things started going downhill, or if that was a skill he just hadn’t picked up yet. Pete knew that feeling, that sudden realisation that he was tipping over the edge and that he’d failed yet again to stop it, so he assumed that was what Patrick felt, too. 

Now, in the lounge in the bus, Patrick was glaring at the book he was holding. He’d been there all morning, had been there since before Pete even woke up. With his laptop, his old GameBoy, a magazine, a crossword puzzle, his book. He hadn’t turned a page in almost twenty minutes. Pete watched as Patrick’s eyes tracked over the same line over and over again, and he knew what was happening. Patrick sighed, loudly and sharply, and Pete looked away again. He hadn’t yet figured out a way to intervene, to derail this train-wreck before it happened, without it looking like he was criticising Patrick. Without Patrick thinking that he was being criticised. Before he even had the chance to try, however, Patrick slammed the book on the couch. It was loud against the pleather, loud enough to make Andy look over from the kitchenette. The ringing sound was still in Pete’s ears as he looked over to see that Patrick was moving again, but shaking and tugging at the hem of his shirt. He walked over from the seat opposite and wrapped his arm firmly around Patrick’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” He asked. An arbitrary question, but it was better than assuming.

Patrick looked up at him, shaking his head as Pete pulled him into a tight hug. He stayed there for a moment, reluctant to let Patrick go when he was so unsteady, and then waited for Patrick to reply. Patrick was still shaking, not like a shiver but more frantic, more worrying. Pete kept his arms strong as he waited for Patrick’s reply.

“Could we maybe stop for a minute? I’m going stir-crazy.” He murmured.

Pete nodded, releasing Patrick so that he could try and amend the situation. He looked to Andy, who gave him a reassuring smile as Pete went to go talk to the driver, ask if they could pull in at the nearest rest stop. It didn’t seem like too outlandish a request, they rarely stopped on the road anymore. They hadn’t stopped at all yet that day, other than a brief respite where one of the crew switched places with the driver for a while. When Pete returned to wrap himself around Patrick once more, it was the with the news that there was a truck stop not five minutes away. Patrick breathed a shaky sigh of relief as they slowed down, feeling the bus turn around the corner and into the layby. As he stood up, out of Pete’s arms and looking vacantly toward the door, Pete followed.

Patrick gave a frosted sigh upon stepping out of the bus, crisp in the February air. He looked like he was ready to punch something, or kick something, but then Pete watched as he crumpled in on himself like a ragdoll. He looked so small in the grey expanse of the parking lot, breathing quick and short to the point where Pete worried he might pass out. His face pressed into his knees, his fists clenched tight and bloodless; Pete sat down next to him, but didn’t reach out.

“Hey,” Pete asked softly, “Tell me what’s wrong?”

“I can’t think!” Patrick gasped, “I tried writing but I can’t write. I can’t read. And- and now I can’t calm down.”

“Yeah you can.” Pete told him.

He was attempting a calming tone, but he wasn't sure if he'd quite hit the mark. They used to solve everything with volatile fights, and it had left the both of them short on the skills needed for civil discussion. Patrick was still decidedly not-okay, and Pete didn’t know what to do about it. He needed to help, though, because every time this happened it broke his heart a little.

“I can’t. I-” Patrick stuttered, “I just want to be able to think clearly again.” 

Pete nodded, understanding a little more, “It still happens a lot, yeah?”

Patrick sighed in agreement, “I thought that having the break would make things easier, get all those ideas out of my head so I could come back to the band with a clear mind. Then just, every idea I let out just got replaced with another and then another again. It just feels like nothing is ever going to get better.”

He crumbled lower, falling back as Pete hugged him again, practically cradling him as Patrick started to calm down. Pete knew something was up, he’d always known Patrick struggled but it hadn’t happened for so long that he thought maybe Patrick had figured things out, gotten over whatever it was that was keeping him down. Pete was outside of his own issues enough now to realise that perhaps it was an idea to try dealing with it properly, rather than just having to cope when things got really bad. He’d vowed a good few years ago that he needed to live happily and not just on the right side of the cliff’s edge, and he thought Patrick should be trying to do the same.

“Patrick, maybe you should let someone help you with this. I’ll go with you, for moral support, if you want. I’m not even saying get medication, unless you really want to.” Pete paused, hoping that this had been the right thing to say, “I just think it would be a good idea.”

“Yeah?” Patrick tilted his head. He looked defeated, and Pete hated it, “I just- I don’t know. I’ll go.”

“Then things can start getting better, right?” Pete reassured, “Now, we’re at a truck-stop. Let’s go get some coffee.”


End file.
